Japanese fishing float, life preserver housed at Neosho hatcheryThere’s a bit of seafaring history on display in the bookstore at the new Neosho National Fish Hatchery.
On the top shelf of the tallest bookshelves, there is a well-used life preserver, and a rare and beautiful glass fishing net float.The two pieces of history were given to the fish hatchery by Zella Mae Collie and are now on display.
The story of how they came to Neosho is worth telling. In 1963 Bill Collie, a Neosho businessman, was in Alaska on a hunting trip. While there he was transported into the backcountry in a small plane. After the hunt was over, the plane came to pick him up.
As Collie and the pilot were returning to “civilization,” they flew low along the coastline just off the Aleutian Peninsula, near Port Heiden. From the air, they spotted something on the beach. The pilot turned around and set the plane down nearby. Collie went to retrieve the item. It was the glass float and the preserver tied up together.
While they knew what the items were, they didn’t know anything about them because the writing on them was in Japanese.
Although the little plane with full of hunting gear and supplies, Collie was determined to get the objects home. With no spare room in the private plane, Collie set the float in his lap and wore the life preserver around his neck.
At the airport to fly home on a commercial flight, he paid to have the float and preserved air freighted home to Neosho.
The float and life preserver hung in Collie’s home for several years. Finally, he talked to Sinabu Marchbank, a woman of Japanese descent who sold vegetables on the Neosho Square. He asked her if she could read Japanese, and she said she could.
He brought the items down to her and she translated what written on the life preserver.
According to Sinabu, the items belong to a Japanese fishing trawler the Prosperous Dragon No. 3. She speculated the trawler had been lost at sea because the life preserver would not normally be adrift in the ocean. The float could have broken away from the fish net, but not a life preserver.
Before his death, Collie said he wanted the two items donated to the Neosho National Fish Hatchery when the new visitors center was complete.
His wish has been granted.
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